Canada History at the World Cup
Perhaps the shortest post I’ve ever considered given that in the 90 year history of the world cup Canada has only qualified once, in 1986. During that event, Canada played in 3 games losing all of them with a combined score of 5 – nil to USSR, France and Hungary. It’s a sad result for our country in the world’s most popular sport, but I’m not sure that tells the whole story.
In most countries that have exceled at soccer, or football as it is commonly known throughout most of the world, winter doesn’t mean 120 cm of snow and temperatures that can dip to minus 40 C or F. Instead, it means a cooling time from the intense and sustained heat of the long summer months. In fact even today, most major leagues around the country play during the winter months when Canadians are busy clearing driveways and sliding on highways.
The result of this seasonal anomaly, is that Canada developed it’s own national sport modeled around the frigid temperatures and frozen ponds found from coast to coast – hockey. Over the past 112 years, a full 12 years before one of the most corrupt associations in the world – FIFA, established the first world cup, Canadians were being entertained and delighted by the competition for Hockey’s Stanley Cup. And ever since that time, most of Canada’s athletic talent have become hockey players and not soccer players. Consider this: even though as early as the 1960s and 1970s most public school kids played soccer 3 times a day during recess, it was hockey that they played in earnest on the weekends even though the cost of the equipment was enormous. That’s just the way it was.
Players such as the great Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, Bobby Orr, Maurice Richard not to mention one of the best overall athletes of all time, Gordie Howe, all turned to hockey and away from soccer. It was Canada’s game through an extended era of Canada’s prime and for decades it was the one and only sport to play if you were an athletic Canadian. Back in those days, Canadians learned to skate before they walked and every driveway and parking lot and back yard pond had at least one hockey net. Ball hockey, road hockey, any kind of hockey at all. It was played everywhere every month of the year.
But over time, as Canada welcomed more and more immigrants, prefaces from around the world started to creep into the national psyche and unbelievably, hockey was no longer the only game in town. Today Canada is the second most represented country in basketball and beginning to make realm noise on the international stage, a feat that even recently seemed impossible against our giant neighbour, the U.S. And today, several Canadians are noted as being among the best soccer players in the world. That’s right – in the world.
Canada is now in the early going of a gruelling 14 game qualifying tournament to get back to the world cup for only the second time – ever. They have 2 ties including against the U.S., a very respectable result and a sound victory against El Salvador. It’s time we started playing attention because in 10 years time, Canada soccer could be world class.
Get on board now before the band wagon gets full.